The guitarist and singer, Kurt Cobain, described "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as an attempt to write "the ultimate pop song", inspired by the soft-and-loud dynamics of the Pixies.

The title derives from a phrase written by his friend Kathleen Hanna, the singer of the riot grrrl band Bikini Kill: "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit."

[6] Eventually, Novoselic began playing it more slowly, inspiring drummer Dave Grohl to create the drum beat,[9] which drew from disco artists such as the Gap Band.

[11] The title derives from a phrase written on Cobain's wall by his friend Kathleen Hanna, singer of the riot grrrl band Bikini Kill: "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit.

"[12][13] Hanna meant that Cobain smelled like the deodorant Teen Spirit, which she and Tobi Vail, his then-girlfriend, had discovered during a trip to the grocery store.

[14] Cobain said that he was unaware of the deodorant until months after the single was released, and had interpreted it as a revolutionary slogan, as they had been discussing anarchism and punk rock.

[16] Vig and the band recorded "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at Sound City Studios in the Los Angeles, California neighborhood of Van Nuys in May 1991.

Cobain plays a two-note guitar line over Novoselic's root-note eighth note bassline, which outlines the chord progression.

[24] The lyrics to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" were often difficult for listeners to decipher, both due to their nonsensicality and because of Cobain's slurred, guttural singing voice.

American rock critic Dave Marsh noted comments by disc jockeys of the time that the song was "the 'Louie Louie' of the nineties" and wrote, "Like 'Louie', only more so, 'Teen Spirit' reveals its secrets reluctantly and then often incoherently.

Additionally, the "famously obscure couplet"—"A mulatto, an albino / A mosquito, my libido"—is, according to Azerrad, "nothing more than two pairs of opposites, a funny way of saying the narrator is very horny".

[39] In an interview conducted the day Nevermind was released, Cobain stated the song was about his friends, explaining, "We still feel as if we're teenagers because we don't follow the guidelines of what's expected of us to be adults ...

"[42] The video received its world premiere on MTV's late-night alternative rock program 120 Minutes on September 29,[43] and proved so popular that the channel began to air it during its regular daytime rotation.

It topped the 1991 Village Voice "Pazz & Jop" and Melody Maker year-end polls and reached number two on Rolling Stone's list of best singles of the year.

[45] "Teen Spirit" hit number one on the Modern Rock Tracks chart and has been certified platinum (one million copies shipped) by the Recording Industry Association of America.

[50] Entertainment Weekly would later name Nirvana's loss to Eric Clapton in the Best Rock Song category as one of the 10 biggest upsets in Grammy history.

It features Nirvana playing at a pep rally in a high school gym to an audience of apathetic students on bleachers, and cheerleaders wearing black dresses with the Circle-A anarchist symbol.

[61] Occasionally, the scene cuts to a janitor (played by Tony De La Rosa) wearing a navy blue jumpsuit and dancing with a push broom handle.

The discontent was genuine; the extras who filled the bleachers had been forced to stay seated through numerous replays of the song for an entire afternoon of filming.

[62] Another major change involved two sequences of a principal standing next to a loudspeaker and being sprayed with confetti, and a teacher dressed like a nerd dancing to the song with a "Dunce" cap before being tied to a basketball hoop pole.

A similar early live performance of the song is found in the documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke, filmed during a 1991 summer tour in Europe with Sonic Youth.

[citation needed] The international television debut performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was on 8 November 1991, on the UK TV series The Word.

[75] Cobain opened by declaring: "I want everyone in this room to know that Courtney Love, the lead singer of the sensational pop group Hole, is the best fuck in the world.

Rolling Stone remarked that the Wishkah version of "Teen Spirit" "[found] Cobain's guitar reeling outside the song's melodic boundaries and sparking new life in that nearly played-out hit".

[78] A notable alternate performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" occurred on BBC's Top of the Pops in 1991, during which the band refused to mime to the pre-recorded backing track and Cobain deliberately sang the whole song an octave lower and altered numerous lyrics in the song (for example, "Load up on guns, bring your friends" became "Load up on drugs, kill your friends").

[79] When Top of the Pops was cancelled in 2006, The Observer listed Nirvana's performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as the third greatest in the show's history.

[81] Dubbed an "anthem for apathetic kids" of Generation X,[82][83] in the years following Cobain's 1994 suicide and Nirvana's breakup "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has continued to garner critical acclaim, and is often listed as one of the greatest songs of all time.

[86] The Recording Industry Association of America placed "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at number eighty on their 2001 "Songs of the Century" list.

[111] According to Nielsen Music's year-end report for 2019, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the most-played song of the decade on mainstream rock radio with 145,000 spins.

[117] In 1995, the queercore band Pansy Division released a cover version with altered lyrics titled "Smells Like Queer Spirit" on their Pile Up album.